Apple from Seed - Landrace

Adaptation Projects
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Something I’ve been focusing on over the last year is acquiring seed from as many different apple varieties as possible. Im not super attached to named cultivars, but this has helped me to maximize potential diversity when purchasing fruit to eat. I have also been sampling as many wild and unknown cultivars as possible from trees in our area. If it tasted good, I kept the seeds, and harvested more apples to get even more of the seed when possible.

When saving the seed my process has mostly been to soak the fresh-few day old seeds in water to test for viability. Sinkers have been kept, and then dried for a few days. Once dried they have been placed into plastic baggies or small glass jars, and kept refrigerated, or stored in a cool place out of direct light.

I now have almost a dozen containers with different labels, including:

  • Skillcult Seeds (purchased)
  • @jens Jens crabapples
  • Storage Apples mix (Apple seeds taken from late winter 2023 and early spring 2024 storage apples)
  • Red/Pink Flesh
  • July mix
  • August mix
  • September mix
  • October mix
  • November mix
  • (Also hoping to create a late hanging apple mix December - February)

The named varieties in many of these mixes include:

  • Alwa
  • Boiken
  • Champion
  • Cortland
  • Eliza
  • Gala
  • Golden Delicious
  • Goldstar
  • Idared
  • Jonagold
  • Lidol
  • Lobo
  • Paula Red
  • Papirovka
  • Rajka
  • Topaz

The November mix has the most diversity so far.

My plan is to direct-seed in dense rows similar to what Steven Edholm with Skillcult has done, but with more emphasis on landracing initially. I expect that 1 in 5 seeds will actually sprout in the first year, and 1 in 10 will survive. Out of the survivors I am guessing that 9 out of 10 will be cut out after the first fruitings, as to select for best tasting and other favorable traits.

I am mainly making this post to put a call out to this community to please save your apple seeds, and send them my way! I am hoping to acquire as much genetic diversity as possible before planting out the dense rows. Especially if you have access to anything not already listed above. The hope is that eventually all these trees will begin cross pollinating, and end up creating a true apple grex.

If any of you are interested in doing something similar, then I am happy to share some of the seeds that I have saved and will be saving.

Happy to accept feedback and guidance from you all as well.

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Hi,
your way of doing things might run into some issues:
Commercial apple plantations usually have a few “pollinator apples” in each row. These are tiny (cherry-sized), sour apples. By gathering seeds of commercial apples, you might get an almost inedible apple. The apple tree you will get is always about half of the father’s genetics!

If you gather seeds from orchards where there are only good, edible apples (for example from conservation orchards, or private people keeping a few good apples), you will advance much faster in your landrace. An apple doesn’t fall far from the parent trees :wink: depending how far both parents are

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I have found on many occasions that floating seeds are as good as sinking ones. If a seed looks well developed and is firm, I plant it.

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I am interested in creating Landrace apple and starting to collecting seeds to do so @eArthur.
I want to emphasize on the need to collect seeds from conservation orchards.
Nowadays, commercials varieties have a very poor genetic diversity.
In fact since 1920 European and American varieties come from 6 parents ; Golden Delicious, Cox Orange, Jonhatan, Mcintosh, Red Delicious and James Grives. So that’s a huge botlleneck and there is a real need to get back to old ones.
Luckily my parents have a conservation orchard and other passionate people have also created similar reservoir.
BTW I’m Paul from France a good friend of Thomas.

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If I am able to acquire these kinds of seeds, then I will certainly prioritize planting them. For now I am working with what I have access to. This is partly why im making this post. To hopefully acquire more genetic diversity.

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I’m up for working with you Arthur. I sowed my first apple seed last spring and expect most of them will germinate next spring (didn’t have time for stratification). I’m working mostly with Stephen Edholm’s genetics before I build up better knowledge of the varieties in my own orchard.

Trees take a while, so I’m more aware of my seed sources. I’m echoing some other voices here in the thread. Commercial apple orchards use crab apples that are prolific pollinators, but often do not taste very good. If I get that genetics into my landrace, I would have to spend several breeding cycles getting rid of it again. For me that means being much more selective about parentage. This is one of Stephen Edholm’s own lessons by the way - if he was going to do it again, he would have studied and observed a bit more before planting the quantities he did. In any case, he’s certainly done fine with the approach he started out with. So overall, I’m optimistic about it.

I have around 90 different apple varieties in my nursery and gene bank that I’ve grafted onto trees. Not all of them have come into bearing. In my experience, many varieties are not very interesting but continue to be propagated merely because they were old. Albert Etter tested around 500 apple varieties and thought that most of them were not worth growing. I would like to have the courage to get rid of the varieties I don’t like and not cling to them like some museum piece (an impulse I recognize having had!).

Genetic analyses of many heritage varieties show that they are very similar genetically. Paul references a study made by Hans-Joachim Bannier who showed that most varieties stem from only six varieties. A huge group around Cox Orange, which is also the one with the least genetic diversity. James Grieve, which is mentioned as the sixth group, even has Cox ancestry itself - so in a sense it is only five groups. Having 30 different varieties, all with the same Cox ancestry, is in some ways less genetic diversity than having one Cox apple and one other, much more different, apple variety from say Russia.

I love highly aromatic apples. I wouldn’t mind having less crispy apples (with the most recent additions to that craze, I think I’ve reached my limit) if I can get more flavor. I’m especially interested in apples with peculiar aromas. I think Stephen Edholm is exploring crab apples and red-fleshed apples for that reason - berries, pineapple, grape, stonefruit, chewing gum that kind of thing.

I want more acidity than modern American cultivars that come off as bland to me, because they are just sweet. I wouldn’t mind discovering some apples that are good mostly for cooking, baking, juicing etc.

I’ve also interested in varieties that work well for gardens and small orchards. Robustness against disease. No pesticides and low input. That thing of course.

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I collect all apple seeds as well. I plant them in a dense row with the intention to lay them into a hedge to eventually contain a few sheep. I don’t mind crab apple genetics because anything the sheep or chickens don’t eat is going to cider.

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Agreed. I did a float test with several stone fruits, in and out of the shell, and there was no difference in germination.

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I have noticed that if I let seeds soak for a few hours a lot of the floaters end up sinking.

I do still think it is a good way to separate less than ideal seed from the questionable, especially if the intention is to also share with others and maximize germinations rates.

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Yes! There is more to apple trees than just the fruits, which is a big reason why im not hesitating to plant so many in such dense rows. This is one reason why i want to get the late hanging apples, too. Even if they freeze, or end up not so good to eat for us, the chickens, pigs, and winter wildlife will still have a source of food when there isn’t much else available. Plus the wood is valuable too when it comes time to prune or cut back any trees.

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It would be an honor to work with you on this kind of project.

I have watched most of Stepen Edholm videos, and it has brought a lot of inspiration to go ahead and have fun with breeding without getting too distracted by the nay sayers. Any of us, in any practice, would have done things differently if we could start over. This is a sign of evolution, rather than revolution. I totally agree that listening to those who have already gone through the exercises is a wise way to formulate our own desired outcomes and experiments.

Sometimes there is also the concept of “paralysis by analysis”. I hope to find a balance between analyzing and studying, and actually going out and doing, and making the mistakes, without worrying to much about it. The mistakes are often the most powerful teachers. I am also the kind of person that likes to show ways in which the impossible is actually possible. To break away from the “why cant” mentality, and tune more into the “how can?”. This is why I am so attracted to GTS network. People here are finding ways to do unbelievable things with their breeding efforts. Breaking new ground and busting through barriers.

One of the things Steven mentions about crab apple genetics is that he wants their hardiness and resistance to diseases, which it why he includes them in his breeding efforts. For somebody who doesn’t have the resources to get “conservation orchard” genetics, this is a great way to move forward without delay, I think.

I did have a thought about reaching out to anybody who collects heritage apples, and see if they are willing to share their apple seeds for the breeding efforts we are discussing here. I think it is a great cause, and if we are able to share our visions effectively we could certainly get more support for what we might be doing for free, or at personal cost, anyway.

Have you heard of Tom Brown? https://www.applesearch.org

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Thank you for this nugget of information. I will be coming back to it as a reminder frequently.

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I observe nearly 100% germination of apple seeds anyway, at least from those that I collect. Cold stratification in a fridge for approx. 3 months makes it even better, if possible at all - every single seed with rare exception germinates and its root shows up. With a good timing, it allows to have almost 100% od seedlings from stratified seeds.

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Hi Arthur,
I am working with apples as well. My goal is to a) collect as many apple varieties as possible that not only grow but thrive at an altitude and b) cross the best ones with each other to improve on them.

Currently I am still in the aquiring and assessing germplasm phase. But I have always collected the seeds of the apples I eat and later tossed them out into the garden to grow in an informal and low stakes manner (if it grows l, it grows). So I could very well collect my seeds and instead of tossing them out, send them to you. I eat many old and rare apples from trees my parents and I planted, and well, of course sometimes there will be seeds from an commercial orchard in there, but I would not worry about that too much, as long as there is a diversity of genetics otherwise. Are you interested?

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As for germplasm and getting access to “conservation orchard” varieties, I can recommend the scion exchange Fruitiers. There are hundreds of varieties available there: https://www.fruitiers.org/genre/malus-domestica-pomme

For example, you can see the list of varieties I have on offer here: https://www.fruitiers.org/verger/le-verger-de-malterod/

There’s nothing easier to graft than apple and you don’t need a lot of space, if you already have an apple tree growing in your garden. You can turn that into a multi-variety tree, which means the scion will come into bearing fast and you’ll often be able to taste it next year.

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Yes, i’m definitely interested! This sounds wonderful. Ill connect with you in messages…

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Last year I connected with some folks that Steven Edholm recommended for scions, and I ended up paying a lot of money to get about a dozen varieties. I went through the process of grafting onto 2 different trees in early spring. In the end almost none of my purchased scions succeeded.

At the same time I cut scion from some of our own trees, and added that to the multi-variety frankentrees that I attached the other purchased scions onto, and almost all of those are still alive today.

I hesitate to risk spending money on more scion. This is one reason why im opting to go with the less risky and slower method of growing from seeds for now.

I do have plenty of mediocre apple trees that can be grafted onto, though. Any heritage pre- 1920s varieties that you can share/sell I would be very interested in.

But honestly, after going through the dialogue in this thread, it is now the seeds of the heritage varieties that I am really after and interested in the most.

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I understand you don’t want to spend money on scions. The exchange is posted above is on a barter basis - you send something, the other person sends something to you. It doesn’t cost more than sending a small package.

Your scions didn’t take. When and how did you graft and how did the scions look when you received them?

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Im sure i will have a lot of seeds for you next year, i already planted the ones i harvested this year.
My skillcult grafts flowered for the first time and will have crossed into the redlove era from lubera that they were grafted unto, so i have high expectations for those!

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I was experimenting with a few different types of grafts, including whip and tongue, cleft, and bark. Mostly it was whip and tongue.

I timed it to get all the work done just before sap flow, or right as it was starting. Late Winter - early Spring. I believe it was mid March.

The scions I purchased were smaller than a pencil diameter, but still looked relatively ok. They were bendable and had buds that had not opened yet. They came from a collector with hundreds of varieties of Apple trees in a slightly cooler climate than my own. Out of about 30 grafts, 3 are alive.

The scion that i took from my families trees was closer to pencil diameter size, and of course more fresh. Out of about 40 grafts, only a few did not make it. The ones that did not make it were mainly the bark grafts.

Anyway, the whole grafting thing doesn’t excite me nearly as much as growing from seed, even though I do think it is a valuable skill to have.

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